BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) – States stepped up their efforts to put the coronavirus vaccine into arms on Monday after last week’s winter closed clinics, slowed vaccine deliveries and forced tens of thousands of people losing their vaccines – all as the country approached to register 500,000 COVID-19 deaths.
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People wait in line for the opening of a 24-hour COVID-19 vaccination clinic, hosted by the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, at the Liacouras Center at Temple University in Philadelphia. States are working quickly to put the coronavirus vaccine in people’s arms after last week’s ice storms, freezing temperatures and widespread power outages closed clinics and reduced vaccine deliveries across the country. (AP Photo / Matt Rourke, Archive)
President Joe Biden planned to mark the milestone with a moment of silence and a candlelit ceremony at the White House. He will also order US flags to be lowered into federal buildings for the next five days.
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ARCHIVE – In this February 19, 2021 archive photo, traffic cones line up around the empty parking lot of Dodger Stadium, a massive vaccination of COVID-19 in Los Angeles. California closed some vaccination centers and delayed consultations after winter storms in other parts of the country that made it difficult to send doses. (Photo AP / Damian Dovarganes, Archive)
In Louisiana, state health officials said doses of last week’s shipments were delivered over the weekend and are expected to continue until Wednesday. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week’s supply arrived on Monday. And in Nashville, Tennessee, health officials were able to vaccinate more than 2,300 seniors and teachers over the weekend after days of treacherous weather.
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“We will be asking the vaccine providers a lot,” said Louisiana’s top public health advisor, Dr. Joe Kanter, who hopes it will take a week or two to recover the vaccines after a storm covered the roads with ice and left many areas without running water.
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Power outages related to snow, ice and climate closed some vaccination sites and delayed necessary shipments in a large part of the country, including the Deep South.
As a result, the seven-day continuous average of the first doses administered fell 20% between February 14 and 21, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The White House said about a third of the roughly 6 million doses of vaccine delayed by bad weather were delivered over the weekend, and the administration planned to work with carriers and states to catch up this week. Press secretary Jen Psaki said recovery doses will be sent to vaccination centers “as soon as they can handle them.”
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ARCHIVE – In this archive photo of February 5, 2021, Dr. Ingrid Felix-Peralta, second from the left, and her husband, Dr. Victor Peralta, second from the right, administer the second doses of the COVID- vaccine 19 in New York. States are working quickly to put the coronavirus vaccine in people’s arms after last week’s ice storms, freezing temperatures and widespread power outages closed clinics and reduced vaccine deliveries across the country. (AP Photo / Seth Wenig, Archive)
The effort was made when some states began to expand the number of people eligible to receive vaccines.
Some hospitals, clinics, community sites and pharmacies that are part of the Louisiana vaccination network will receive double doses this week – just as Governor John Bel Edwards starts offering vaccines to teachers, daycare centers, pregnant women and people aged 55 and 64 years old, certainly pre-existing conditions.
Last week’s weather prompted local health officials in Nashville, Tennessee, to vaccinate more than 500 people with doses that would otherwise have expired, including hundreds in homeless shelters and residents of a historically black neighborhood who were mostly elderly people with underlying health problems.
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ARCHIVE – In this February 17, 2021 archive photo, people receive the COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination station in Las Vegas. States are working quickly to get the coronavirus vaccine into people’s arms after last week’s ice storms, freezing temperatures and widespread power outages shut down clinics and reduced vaccine deliveries across the country. (AP Photo / John Locher, Archives)
New York City officials hope to recover vaccinations after being forced to postpone scheduling tens of thousands of appointments last week, the mayor said on Monday.
“This means that we basically lost an entire week in our vaccination efforts,” said DeBlasio. “But that will not stop us from reaching our goal of 5 million vaccinated New Yorkers by June, because we still have the capacity and the capacity to do this.”
Illinois’ chief physician said a plan to expand vaccines this month for people with underlying health problems is being delayed due to a lack of doses and it will take months for the supply to meet demand. Comments from the Director of the Department of Public Health, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, in an opinion piece from the Chicago Tribune over the weekend, come amid complaints of shortages and difficulties in obtaining consultations.
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ARCHIVE – In this February 18, 2021 archive photo, a pharmacist prepares a syringe with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a COVID-19 vaccination site at NYC Health + Hospitals Metropolitan in New York. States are working quickly to put the coronavirus vaccine in people’s arms after last week’s ice storms, freezing temperatures and widespread power outages closed clinics and reduced vaccine deliveries across the country. (Photo AP / Mary Altaffer, Archive)
More than 7.3 million Californians have received at least one dose of vaccine, but supplies are well below the amount the state has the capacity to administer, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday.
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ARCHIVE – In this archival photo of February 10, 2021, Vera Eskridge, 86, on the right, is escorted to the waiting room by registered nurse Angelo Bautista after taking her COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination station mounted in the Mission’s parking lot. Los Angeles in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. States are working quickly to get the coronavirus vaccine into people’s arms after last week’s ice storms, freezing temperatures and widespread power outages closed clinics and reduced vaccine deliveries across the country. (AP Photo / Jae C. Hong, Archive)
California expects to receive 1.4 million doses this week and 1.5 million next week, Newsom said during a stop in Long Beach for a tour of vaccination efforts across the state.
Meanwhile, some states are lifting restrictions on residents as the number of new infections decreases.
In New Jersey, fans will be able to attend sporting and entertainment events at the state’s largest facilities in limited numbers starting next week, Governor Phil Murphy said on Monday.
New Jersey venues with a capacity of 5,000 indoor seats will be able to occupy 10% of seats and outdoor venues with more than 5,000 seats will be able to occupy 15% from March 1, the Democratic governor told the sports radio station WFAN. Facial coverage and social distance will be required at the events.
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Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan. Associated Press writers Brian Hannon in Salt Lake City, Utah; John Antczak in Long Beach, California; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
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